Ernie Found, earlier this month outside of his home in rural Iowa City, displays a volleyball inscribed by members of the West High volleyball team. / Josh O’Leary / Iowa City Press-Citizen

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Josh O’Leary

Iowa City Press-Citizen

A mile or two outside of Iowa City, down a leafy country lane, there’s a barn that mostly sits quiet these days. Inside is where Caroline Found spent so many of her best times.

There’s the swing dangling from a rafter that Caroline, sporting a grin as wide as the barn doors, first conquered at age 5. There’s the wood-floored basketball court where she and her friends would spend afternoons playing carefree games, no coaches or referees in sight. There’s the John Deere tractor that her dad would wheel out for homecoming and Fourth of July parades with a trailer with Caroline and her waving volleyball teammates in tow.

“Here they can just be kids,” says Ernie Found, giving a couple visitors a tour of the barn where he and wife Ellyn had hosted Halloween dances and postseason parties for their children’s sports teams. It’s a bright spring evening outside, and his two dogs are running in the picturesque yard of the farmhouse the family has called home for 25 years.

A school year has nearly come and gone since Caroline, a high school senior-to-be and the youngest of the three Found siblings, died in an August moped accident, a tragedy compounded just a dozen days later when Ellyn lost her four-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Caroline, an ebullient teenager beloved by classmates at West High, where she was a deeply involved student and a standout athlete, was gone at 17. Ellyn, a warm-hearted mother who worked as an occupational therapist while devoting her free time to her children’s schools, her church and her community, was gone at 55.

This would have been a special week for Caroline and Ellyn, says Ernie, who on Thursday will accept an honorary diploma in his daughter’s place during West High’s graduation ceremony at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. For Caroline, it would have marked the end of a happy high school career with her wide circle of friends. For Ellyn, who loved any party not thrown in her honor, she would have played host to her third and final West High graduation celebration at their home.

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Ernie will be there when his daughter’s classmates turn their tassels, just as he cheered on her teammates during their remarkable state volleyball championship run in the fall and has been a mainstay at West events throughout the year. He plans to attend a few graduation parties, but getting to all of the dozens upon dozens of celebrations to which he’s been invited won’t be possible.

That large stack of invitations is just a small measure of the community outpouring for the Founds — Ernie, son Gregg, 25, and daughter Catherine, 22 — in recent months.

“I just can’t imagine getting more support, love and comfort than what we’ve received,” says Ernie. Emotions are still raw, and he chokes back tears. “Caroline always seemed to have a knack of bringing the best out of people. So I guess we’re experiencing the best being brought out of them again. It’s been overwhelming at times, the spirit.”

Ernie, 60, an associate professor in the University of Iowa’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, is seated in his living room with Gregg, who has the week off from his job in Connecticut as a researcher for ESPN. Across from the couch and chairs, on the mantle, a wooden plaque reads “True love stories have no endings.” Above it is a canvass replica of “American Gothic,” which is right at home in the farmstead setting.

But Ernie beckons his visitors to take a closer look at the painting, and picks up a smaller, framed print of the original Grant Wood work for comparison. For his and Ellyn’s 25th anniversary, Ernie says, he asked a local artist to paint something special. One of the ideas was to paint the two as the “American Gothic” couple, but Ernie worried that it would turn out to be more of a caricature than the romantic gesture he wanted.

Instead, Ernie worked with the painter for months to include 25 subtle changes to the iconic scene that were meaningful to the couple: Their children’s names and birthdays are painted onto each of the three tines of the farmer’s pitchfork, the Founds’ red barn stands in the background, the farmer’s wife is wearing the string of pearls Ernie had given Ellyn for their wedding.

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One night, just a couple of weeks before Ernie was to have the painting installed, he came home to find the smaller Grant Wood print, which had been floating around the house for years, had been placed atop the mantle — exactly where the anniversary painting was to go. Certain someone had coughed up his plans and foiled his surprise, Ernie began asking tactful questions. Ellyn, though, was convincingly nonchalant, and after a while, it began to become clear that she wasn’t trying to convince him of anything at all.

In what could simply be described as coincidence — or maybe something greater that offers a small glimpse of the depth of the couple’s bond — Ellyn had on a whim tossed the print up on the mantle without an inkling of her husband’s plan.

A couple weeks later, the surprise was a success.

“That’s about the best I’ve ever done in pulling one over on Ellyn,” Ernie chuckles.

The fifth and decisive game of the 2011 state volleyball finals in Cedar Rapids was about to begin, and Ernie Found was on edge. Arch-rival City High had the trophy all but in its clutches by winning the first two games, but West, remarkably, had stormed back to claim the next two frames, evening the score at 2-2.

With the marathon match and emotion-filled season poised for a dramatic finish, Ernie asked friend Paul Etre to grab something he had left out in the car. Etre returned with a framed photo showing No. 9 pumping her fists in celebration, and her mother in the background cheering.

Caroline was a talented all-around athlete, playing basketball through elementary and middle school, then varsity softball at West. She shined brightest on the volleyball court, though, earning all-state honorable mention status while helping the Women of Troy capture a state championship her junior year.

As the setter who orchestrated the offense, coupled with her high-spirited leadership and fun-loving approach to the game, coaches called her the heartbeat of the team. Had she chosen to, she could have played in college and followed in the footsteps of big sister Catherine, who last weekend graduated from Trinity University in Texas after a a stellar volleyball career.

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“Caroline was impulsive, she was funny, she was mischievous, she was happy-go-lucky. Those are not always good things for a coach, especially when this person is running your team,” laughs West High volleyball coach Kathy Bresnahan. “But bottom line, she just cared for people.”

Before the volleyball season even began, Caroline — never a stranger to boldness — declared that her team would repeat as champions. And now, in November, as the title match seesawed back and forth, Ernie Found kept his daughter’s photo near amid the sea of West supporters, many wearing their “Live Like Line” T-shirts.

West senior Kelley Fliehler, who had stepped into the setter role after the death of her close friend, says it “meant everything” to know Ernie was in the stands throughout the season.

“He’s honestly become like another parent,” says Fliehler, who has known Caroline since they met at preschool. “It puts the biggest smile on my face to see him in the crowd whenever he comes to any school function. When he says he’s proud of you, it means the world. It’s amazing to see that he could come places that you would think is so hard because he’d be used to seeing her there. But you see how strong he is, and it pushes you to be strong and carry on her memory, and not just grieve all the time.”

When West’s Shelly Stumpff belted a shot down the line for match point, the Women of Troy players bounded together and collapsed in a joy-filled pile. Bresnahan, meanwhile, was scanning the stands looking for Ernie, who held up his daughter’s photo.

The coach hopped over a partition and raced to Ernie’s seat. The two shared a long embrace before Ernie sent the photo down to the court with Bresnahan for a teary celebration.

When the cameras clicked and the team posed with its trophy, Caroline was there, too.

“It was a pretty special moment,” Bresnahan says.

Caroline was returning home on her moped from a religious youth group event on a Thursday night in August when, according to police, she failed to negotiate a curve, lost control and hit a tree. She was killed upon impact.

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Grieving teammates and friends walked from West the following day to create a memorial at the crash site. Days later, throngs of friends and family filled the sanctuary and several overflow rooms for her funeral at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, where she was remembered for her infectious happiness and as a person who never met a stranger.

And there to greet family and friends was Ellyn, who, weakened as she was by cancer, was determined to leave the hospital.

Before the accident, the Found family had been no stranger to heartache. Ellyn had been diagnosed with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer over Easter weekend of 2011, and from the onset, the outlook was not favorable, Ernie says. Ellyn was hospitalized for the final 15 or so days of her life, though she was able to return home for a few hours after Caroline’s funeral.

“The medical team did a marvelous job getting her able to do it, and it was touch and go right up until a half hour before the church service as to whether she’d be able to make it,” Ernie says. “But doggonit, she did. And she said to me she wanted to walk out. As she did, she was greeting people and smiling and thanking them in typical fashion.”

Although the shock of Ellyn’s diagnosis was sudden, the family had time to process the situation, even if just for a few months.

“But Caroline’s we couldn’t understand at first,” Ernie says. “Lots of questions, lots of shock, lots of unknowns and things like that. We were able to be with Ellyn all the time in the hospital and so forth. But for two weeks there, a lot of heartache. Kleenex stock probably went up quite a bit during that period of time.”

Earlier in the summer, the West High softball team had hosted a Coaches vs. Cancer fundraiser in honor of Ellyn, with Caroline designing “Team Ellyn” T-shirts for the event. So it was fitting that, following Caroline’s death, students filled the stands at volleyball games wearing “Live Like Line” T-shirts. Teams from around the region also paid tribute to West’s departed leader, including City High, whose players added a cutout of Spiderman to their team poster in homage to a nickname Caroline had earned on the volleyball court. In the spring at West, with Ernie in attendance, a group of 11 seniors sang “Sweet Caroline,” at a show choir concert.

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Gregg Found says the community’s support has given the family strength when it’s needed it most.

“Small gestures like that are helpful and uplifting to us, more than people even anticipate even when they do them,” Gregg says. “They probably think that they’re doing them in part for themselves, and they don’t even realize that as a byproduct, they’re doing them for us, too. Those are the things that have really made a difference.”

Likewise, Ernie’s continued involvement with West High activities, from basketball games to fine arts events to next week’s graduation, has been uplifting for the school, Principal Jerry Arganbright said.

“When I imagine what he as a parent is processing, he continued to reach out to our students and to all of us in helping us work through this very tragic start to the school year,” Arganbright says. “And I most admire him for that strength he displayed.”

In the months following the funerals, Ernie spent time traveling. He made trips to Texas to visit Catherine and watch her volleyball games; he went to upstate New York, where he and Ellyn are from and where his parents still live; he visited Gregg in Connecticut; and he took a trip with Etre to New Hampshire.

At home, a steady stream of visitors has offered comfort. Friends stop by regularly, and many have pitched in with yard work and other chores. On prom night, a group of Caroline’s friends came out to the house, and Ernie pulled the tractor out of the barn for photos.

Late at night, though, when the house is quiet, it’s still difficult.

“Maybe the blows have softened a little bit,” Ernie says. “I’ve heard thousands and thousands of kind words and things. But sometimes at night when you close your eyes and try to go to sleep, you still don’t quite understand. There are a lot of questions you have that you may not have answers to, and some of them maybe can’t be answered completely in this life, and maybe don’t need to be.”

After taking time away from the hospital, Ernie has been easing back into his work gradually since January, and he’s appreciative for the support of his co-workers for making it a smooth return. “Some days I feel like I’d rather be at home rather than be at work, but I’ve got to keep going.”

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Although his work can often help take his mind off things, there are of course plenty of reminders at the hospital, too. As a spine surgeon, seeing trauma patients is tough, he says. “Sometimes I’ve had to ask others to take over on a case or two. A little too close to home.”

Larry Marsh, who works in Found’s department as a professor of orthopedic surgery, has been best friends with Ernie since their days living together in Syracuse while in medical school. The two trained together at Boston University, and when Marsh landed a job at the University of Iowa, he urged Ernie to do the same. One visit in the winter of 1978 was all it took to convince Ernie that Iowa City was home.

“I came back and said, ‘Ellyn, I want to take you out there, I want you to see this, too. I’m pretty enamored with it out there. It’s a special place,’” Ernie recalls.

Marsh served as best man in the Founds’ wedding in 1985, and Ernie stood up for the Marshes when they married in 1994 under an oak tree outside of the Founds’ country home, where they’ve lived during all their years in Iowa City.

“I think they are a pair who fell intensely in love when they met,” Marsh said of Ernie and Ellyn. “They both share a very romantic personality and a romantic view on life. They are people who went to no ends both for each other, but also for West High and their children.”

Marsh said Ernie, whom he calls “one of the great guys in the world,” is revered by students and well-respected by colleagues, and has been an inspiration to all of them this past year.

“In the face of this unimaginable tragedy, he has had difficult times for sure, but by and large has been a figure of strength and emotional support to others who have struggled with the tragedy on their own levels,” Marsh said. “While he has received a lot of support from the community, I think he has provided a lot of support and inspiration to a lot of people during this difficult time.”

Because diplomas are to be awarded alphabetically, Kelley Fliehler would have sat just a chair or two away from her longtime friend come graduation day. But even without Caroline there, Fliehler says she will be close in her thoughts during the ceremony.

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For Fliehler and her classmates, the “Live Like Line” mantra has helped define their senior year.

“Even on the first day, it feels like, at our school, there’s a lot more unity,” Fliehler says. “It’s everyone being a lot more friendly. There are days when there’s classic high school drama, but it just seems like a lot of people are trying to carry on her memory by being friendly to everyone, and trying to do the things she did. She always had such a positive attitude. Even when her mom was sick, she would come to school and ask people how their days were and how they were doing today. She never wanted to dwell on her own problems.”

Caroline’s nurturing and inclusive spirit was one she shared with her mother, whom Ernie says, even when sick, always “wanted to make everybody else feel better.”

“She always saw the good in everybody and wanted to bring that out,” Ernie says of Ellyn, who nurtured her patients in her work as a hand therapist. “She wanted to help anybody any way she could.”

Arganbright says that if he needed a parent volunteer for a school function, Ellyn could be counted on to help. The previous couple of school years, for instance, Found had volunteered to help at orientation days for new parents.

“Ellyn was always here and always willing, in a very positive fashion, just simply asking, ‘What can I do to help?’” Arganbright says. “No matter what the topic was, when I needed a parent to speak for West High School, she was one of the first parents I would think of. She was very supportive of our school and our students and staff.”

With Catherine overseas on a service trip following her college graduation, Gregg Found will accompany his father to the West High graduation — a day that he says has been on his calendar since the fall.

“I know that day, part of me will be overwhelmingly sad,” Gregg says. “But the larger part of me will be just so proud of those classmates.”

When Ernie flew down to Texas for Catherine’s ceremony last week, Fliehler helped house sit. Spending a couple days in the Founds’ home, surrounded by reminders of her friend, gave her time for some quiet reflection.

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“It was nice to be out there,” she says. “It was so peaceful. Some really great memories.”

Among those good times were plenty of days spent in the barn. And often, the first thing Caroline’s friends would do when they came over was take a ride on the swing, Fliehler says.

“I remember one time she tried to stand up on the swing instead of sitting on it, because she loved to test the limits,” Fliehler says. “And I just remember her almost falling, and dying laughing afterward, just saying it was the funniest thing ever. And we were all so scared that she was going to get hurt. It was classic Caroline.”

Giving his visitors a tour of the barn on this day, Ernie gives the swing a small push as he pauses to consider it.

In sports, coaches often preach the importance of developing muscle memory through practice. After hours upon hours of repetition, a motion or task becomes second-nature to the point that it can be done without conscious effort.